Rinse
by Hermione Baudelaire
Summary: Sunny has a crush...a big one...she just doesn't know it. Not slash. Of course, like always with me, it's named after a song. I changed the title back to the original one.
1. Default Chapter

**Okay...this fic is weird. I didn't think I'd post it, but hey, here I am...**

**Wanna know what (one sided) ship it's gonna be? I've got one clue for you: Aston and Demi. Yeah. It's weird.**

**But it's ONE SIDED! That's the key word.**

**Yupyup.**

**BTW, thanks to BlackCherry667 (Yeah, I know, everybody thakns her ****J****!) for writing the first post-series-everybody's together-fic. And thanks to phred doesn't like you for writing the first fic with this ship. Except mine is one sided. Yeah. So, go read _A Love That Was Lost_ and the sequel and _Sunny's Wedding_.**

**Yeah.**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**2/23—I'm posting more to this chapter. I thought it sounded dumb. By the way, I noticed I spelled Ashton's named wrong!!! How could I do that? Anyway, his name is ASHTON KOOTCHER. That was joke. Haha. Okay. I'm not funny...**sigh** **

**I know it's Kutcher. I'm not an idiot.**

**Well, not when it comes to the names of cute celebrities...**

            "Can I do your nails, too?" Violet Baudelaire asked her younger sister, Sunny, as she pulled a brush through the younger girl's hair.

            Sunny shrugged. "Sure." She was glad Violet was happy. Violet was pretty moody sometimes. But, then again, she was a teenager. Weren't they supposed to be moody or something?

            Sunny liked teenagers. Her brother and sister were both teenagers. It seemed like the most amazing thing in the world. They all wore the coolest clothes and had their own cool music and their own cool language. And they had the most amazing ideas. 

            Like right now, for example. Violet was giving Sunny a makeover. 

            "Ow!" Violet had raked the brush through a particularly knotty area of hair. "Can you put it back in something dIfferent from my pigtails?"

            Violet sighed. "Sunny, you've always had pigtails. They're so nice on you!"

            Sunny shook her head, causing the brush bristles to rake along her neck. "Please?"

            "No." Violet started parting her sister's hair. "C'mon! It's so _nice_ this way."

            Sunny groaned. She didn't want to be _nice_. _Nice_ was so...so banal, so mediocre. So boring. She'd learned the big words from her brother, who was also lucky enough to be a teenager. He used a lot of big words with his girlfriend, Isadora, which Sunny thought was terribly sophisticated. Older siblings were so _cool_. 

            Violet had a boyfriend, too. Boyfriends were extremely cool. After song countdowns on the radio, they were probably the coolest things in the entire world. Oh, and after teenagers, of course.

            Violet's boyfriend was named Quigley Quagmire. He was very cool, Sunny  decided, very cool. His sister, Isadora, was dating Sunny's brother, Klaus. So it all worked out perfectly. Violet and Quigley and Klaus and Isadora would go out on nights when Duncan, who was the Quagmire's brother, would baby-sit Sunny. Duncan was on the school newspaper. It was a high school newspaper, the same school Sunny's siblings went to. Sometimes Duncan would leave to go to school newspaper meetings, leaving Sunny by herself in the Quagmire triplet's house.

            That was also _very_ cool.

            Violet started painting Sunny's nails with clear polish. It felt kind of cold through her fingernail. "Good," said Violet when she finished, "now let it dry."

            "Can I do your nails?" asked Sunny hopefully. 

            "No, sorry." Violet loved giving Sunny makeovers, but she never let Sunny give her any makeovers. That could be extremely annoying. "I have a date tomorrow," she added.

            Sunny nodded. She hoped Duncan had a school newspaper meeting. Being alone was very grown up and teenager-ish, very cool. Besides, Duncan was a bad babysitter. All he did was keep the door to his room shut and turn up music very loud. Or he would go downstairs to talk to people on the computer. He let Sunny do whatever she wanted. No, she decided, he was a good babysitter. 

            "We're going to the movies," added Violet. Sunny didn't ask any questions.

            She didn't need to, anyway. Violet always wrote excellent descriptions in her diary. Violet kept her diary in her pillowcase, except for when she slept, when it was slid under her dresser. Sunny was very good at detective work.

            She liked reading about Nancy Drew. Nancy Drew was a teenager, she was also a detective. It would be very cool to be a detective. Nancy Drew even had a boyfriend. His name was Ned.

            "Anyway," said Violet, "I need to do my homework." Teenagers had a lot of homework. "Can you go tell Klaus to get off the phone with Isadora? He has homework, too."

            Sunny shrugged and rolled off Violet's bed. She liked it when Violet let her in her room. Violet had a cool room.

            The word _cool_ was an extremely cool word.

            Klaus was downstairs in the kitchen, listening into the phone. He had an interesting look on his face. Sunny stared at it wistfully. She couldn't wait to be a teenager.

            "Oh, sorry," he said suddenly. "Sunny's here, I guess Violet sent her. I gotta hang up." He paused. "OF course I'll call you back." He paused some more. "Yeah, me too. Bye."

            He hung up. "Violet says—" Sunny began.

            "Yeah, I know." He pushed past her out the door, going upstairs to his room.

            Sunny shrugged. Sometimes teenagers were weird. 

            She went back up to her room to get her Nancy Drew book.

            Violet sang along with the radio as she drove towards the Quagmire's house. Sunny squirmed in the backseat. Duncan had a newspaper meeting, so they were just going to dump her at the Quagmire's for about a zillion hours. She had three Nancy Drew books in her lap, and her pigtails were so tight they hurt her scalp.

            "Okay," Violet said, parking the car and hurrying them out. "Sunny, after Duncan leaves, don't light the stove. Don't let in any strangers. Don't answer the phone unless it's us."

            "I don't think they have caller ID,' she said, ringing the doorbell.

            "You'll know If it's us. Trust your intuition."

            Sunny shrugged. "Okay."

            Isadora opened the door. "Oh hi!" she said. She kissed Klaus on the cheek. "C'mon, let's go. Okay? We're already kind of late."

            "I know," said Violet as she pushed Sunny inside. "Sorry. I was in the shower."

            "It's okay," said Quigley as he followed Isadora onto the porch. "Hi, Klaus."

            "Hi."

            Violet grinned at him. "Hi, boyfriend."

            "Hey."

            They looked like they were about to kiss. Sunny couldn't wait to see that happen. She loved it in movies, when they kissed. Especially If it was near the end of the movie, and the kiss was long and there was music playing.

            "Hi, _Sunny_," said Isadora pointedly, nudging her brother, who blushed.

            "Oh, yeah, uh, hi Sunny. Nice, um, pigtails."

            Sunny felt a kind of intense fluttering in her stomach. She had nice pigtails! She fingered one. "Thanks."

            Quigley shrugged. For one brief second, she was looking him right in the eye. The strange fluttering persisted. Maybe it was the peanut butter sandwich Violet had made her eat in about five seconds before they left.

            That was probably it. The fluttering. It was caused probably by her sandwich, she decided. Case closed. 

            Quigley turned to whisper something to Violet, who blushed. The fluttering went away.

            "You sure you'll be okay, Sunny?" asked Klaus.

            Sunny shrugged in what she hoped was a cool, teenager-ish way. "Whatever. I've done this before. No big deal."

            "Okay..." said Violet slowly. She looked worried. But Violet was eager to leave, and that eventually won her over. "Bye. You know how to reach us."

            They were gone.

            Sunny stepped into the house. Duncan was in the hallway, putting on his jacket.

            "Hi," she said.

            "Hey. Sorry, I gotta go. Don't blow up the house or whatever."

            Duncan left.

            Sunny smiled to herself. Alone. What would she do first...?

**The romance is coming up. I PROMISE!!! Honestly. I couldn't post something and have it not be romance. I'd break out in a rash...**


	2. Chapter Two

'**So. I'm updating quickly. Yep. By the way—ages. In this fic:**

**You have two options. Option A is for the ones of you who don't like math. Sunny is in middle school. Her siblings and the Quagmires are in High School. If you think they're too old, remember that they've missed a lot of school since the start of the series. Okay?**

**Option B is for the spazzes who don't want to accept my laziness. For you, I have written chapter one and a half—**

**Chapter One and A Half: Sunny was happy her siblings were together again. The older Baudelaires, along with the Quagmires, had spent a lot of time away from home recently, in a rocket going at the speed of light or whatever for about a few years. When they returned, Sunny was older, but they were not. The end.**

****

**I'm so lazy...:P But at least I'm keeping them in character...unlike most the writers for Harry Potter. Ugh...**

            Sunny chose a Nancy Drew book and plopped down on the couch. She was bored already.

            The Nancy Drew book was really good, though. A lot of action. In the chapter Sunny was on, Nancy was investigation hotel rooms of suspects to look for evidence.

            Sunny got an idea.

            It was one of those ideas that fill your mind, blossoming from an idea into a theory, from a theory into a plan. Sunny tried to ignore it, to focus on Nancy and the clues, but there was no turning back.

            She wanted to investigate the Quagmire's house.

            Not that she thought they were guilty. But she didn't spend a lot of time there. It would be so cool! Just the sort of thing Nancy Drew would do with an evening to herself. Sighing, Sunny put down the book and went upstairs.

            There were four doors. Sunny chose the first one. Tiptoeing silently to the door, she carefully opened the doorknob, and glanced furtively around at the room inside. It was very clean. Very organized. A bed with a blue cover was against one wall, and on the other wall was a bookshelf.

            Sunny crept over to inspect the bookshelf. _The Collected Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay_, _The Right Way to Write a Sonnet_, _Les __Fleurs du Mal_. She decided it was Isadora's room when she saw all the picture hanging on the wall over the dresser. A picture of Isadora and Klaus, a picture of Klaus, a picture of Klaus, another picture of the two of them, and a picture somebody had drawn with a  heart that said inside it _IQ + KB_. Duh. That wasn't hard.

            She was about to open the door to the next room, but it was locked. She shrugged. A sign said _KEEP OUT –Duncan_ on the door. She decided to check out the next room.

            Sunny stepped inside. This room smelled...well, it sounded weird, but it smelled _comfortable_. Weird.

            She saw piles of jumbled things on the floor. Carefully picking her way around heaps of clothing and paper and books, she made her way to the unmade bed. She could see plaid sheets. How masculine.

            Something fluttered in her chest again. What was it? It hurt, but in a good way. Strange.

            Sunny sat on the bed, feeling exhilarated. On the shelf above the head of the bed, there were a lot of framed pictures. Most of the pictures were of Violet. In one picture, Violet was giving Sunny her pigtails. Sunny cringed. In the picture, she looked so weird next to Violet. 

            Violet was smiling at the camera, she looked like she was laughing. Sunny's eyes were focused somewhere else off-camera, and she looked like she was talking. 

            The pictures of Violet and Quigley stared at her. They laughed at her, mocking her. Sunny stood up, like she was in a trance, and reached up to stroke the world map tacked to the ceiling.

            LIfe was so confusing...

            Where had that thought come from? She wasn't confused. She knew who she was. Her named was Sunny Baudelaire. She hated her name, it made her sound like a hippy or a prostitute. Ugh. She was in middle school and loathed it, she had two older siblings, and she couldn't remember her parents. Her favorite color was light purple. She liked vanilla ice cream. She enjoyed reading Nancy Drew books. She wanted to have long hair down to her butt. She wanted to be good at something, like her older siblings, although her only area of expertise, it seemed, was figuring out what Nancy and George and Bess were going to do next.

            Sunny knew all those things. She just didn't understand...Didn't understand why she was confused...So many things were confusing...

            Weighed down by sudden exhaustion, she curled up on the bed and drifted into sleep.

            She must have slept for a long time, because she woke up to giggles floating up from downstairs. Voices. Violet and Quigley. Where was she?

            With a jolt, Sunny remembered where she was. She stiffly uncurled and stretched. She was in Quigley's bedroom!

            The voices came closer. They were coming upstairs!

            __

**Well...I hope you like it...**


	3. Chapter Three

**Ok...I'm updating again...whee! By the way, to edgy wedgy and all you other ppl who think Sunny should be a baby—I do, too! But I just don't want it to be all Michael Jackson-y, here. Sorry.**

            Desperately, Sunny rolled under the bed and stretched out, hoping that the piles of clutter would hide her. She looked above her. She saw the mattress. It seemed to be bursting out through the springs, about to crush her. She braced herself, but the mattress stayed put.

            Sunny heard the door open. Feet approached her. The mattress sighed, heaving nearer, so close it nearly touched the tip of her nose. They had sat down!

            "Are we alone?" She could just barely hear Violet's voice.

            "Mmm..." The sound of Quigley's voice started that weird fluttering again. "Isadora and Klaus aren't going to come in off the porch anytime soon. And Sunny's probably still down there with her book..."

            There was a long period of silence. Sunny tried to block the image entering her mind, but couldn't help it. What were they doing? 

            "Wow...that felt nice..." she heard Violet sigh. _Get your mind _out_ of the gutter!_ Sunny commanded herself. _You can see their feet! They're sitting down!_

Their legs were rubbing. The fluttering was replaced with nausea. "You're so perfect..." Quigley's voice intensified the sick feeling.

            "I really, really like you..." breathed Violet.

            "And I like you."

            There was more silence. Sunny's vision swam and the whole scene blended into one distorted blob. The dust under the bed was making her eyes water and her nose itch.

            There were a few sounds Sunny wanted to ignore. She could still see their rubbing feet, at least. She wanted them to go away. She really was feeling sick now. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on...on something pleasant. No matter how hard she tried, Quigley's face just kept popping up in her head, which reminded her of the scene going on directly above her.

            "Well, we'd better go get Isadora and Klaus," Violet said reluctantly.

            "Yeah."

            She felt them walk away. Once their voices were downstairs, Sunny rolled out from under the bed. She hurled herself out the room, trying to make it to the bathroom in time—

            It was too late. Sunny slipped and fell, tumbling down the stairs.

            She fell until she reached the bottom. Voices were talking far away. She couldn't concentrate. 

            Sunny leaned over and threw up.

~~~~~~~~

            "She just fell!"

            "I hope she's okay..."

            "Look, she's getting up!"

            "Sunny, are you okay?" Sunny stared up. Violet was talking to her. She looked concerned. Sunny nodded.

            "Uh...I feel really sick."

            "No shit," said Isadora, who then blushed and covered her mouth. "I mean, um, you think?"

            "How sick do you feel?"

            "I...I think...I want to go home..."

            Violet touched her forehead. "Sunny, I think you're sick. We should go to the doctor."

            She shook her head. Bad move. That made everything tilt again. "I'm gonna be fine...I just want to...lay down..." She said everything between gasping breaths.

            "Can you breathe?"

            "Uh..." She felt like such an idiot. Barfing! In front of everybody! They didn't look disgusted, though, just concerned.

            "I'm calling the doctor," said Violet tensely. "Okay?"

            Two hours later, Sunny was nearly asleep in the backseat as they drove back from the doctor's office. She had gotten asthma, they said. Had she been near dust or been working out? 

            She had shrugged it off and said something about getting to a suspenseful part in her Nancy Drew book and hyperventilating. She was too humiliated.

            "Are you asleep?" She heard Violet faintly ask her something. Sleep. Yeah.

            "No," Sunny said groggily. 

            "You should sleep," said Quigley.

            Like she had something to prove, Sunny shut her eyes and drifted off.


	4. Chapter Four

**Thanks for the nice reviews! **

**I just got the All-American Rejects CD at Newbury Comics, with a month of babysitting money. It was totally worth it! **

**Well...here we go...**

Chapter Four

            It was Saturday. They were all at the Baudelaires' house. Sunny was spread out on the couch, writing a book report for school.

            _The Mystery of the Tolling Ball, the 23rd Nancy Drew book by Carolyn Keene is a really fascinating book. I enjoyed it a whole lot. _

_            Nancy Drew is a girl who is just a teenager but she solves a lot of mysteries. She is very smart, and she looks for clues to solve the mysteries._

Sunny put down her pencil. It was no use. The report was stupid!

            "What's up?" came a voice from behind her. The fluttering told her who it was.

            She groaned. "Just my stupid homework."

            "Oh." Quigley sat down next to her and she self-consciously pulled her stuff towards her. "Are you bored?"

            She rolled her eyes, at the homework, not at him. "Am I?"

            He smiled. "Okay. Do you want to go to the library? Isadora and Klaus are going."

            Sunny shrugged. "Okay. Just let me get the books I need to return."          

            She rushed upstairs, to get the books in her room. But something stopped her as she passed the door to Violet's room. Violet's door was open a crack. She probably wanted to come, too.

            Sunny peered through the crack, quietly, hoping to surprise her sister.

            Sunny ended up being the surprised one.

            Violet and Duncan were both sitting on the bed, with their backs to the door.

            Quite preoccupied with one another.

~~~~~~~~~

            "Are you okay?" asked Klaus. "You're kind of quiet." They were driving home from the library.

            "I'm fine!" she said quickly. "Happy! Yeah." She clutched her new Nancy Drew book. It looked really interesting. Nancy was investigating a kidnapping.

            "Okay," said her brother, turning back to his girlfriend. "I think that's a red light."

            Isadora made the car go faster. "Don't be ridiculous," she said, smiling. "It's yellow."

            He shook his head, looking worried. "No, that was definitely a red light."

             She giggled. "You're so paranoid. Oops!"

            A hideous crunching noise made everybody in the car wince. "What was that?" asked Quigley. He was sitting in the backseat with Sunny. "What'd you do?"

Isadora shrugged. "It's not _my_ fault stupid people let their trash cans roll into the street."

            "Um, maybe I should drive?" said Klaus tentatively.

            "Oh, c'mon," laughed Isadora. "I've driven before."

            "When?" asked Sunny, shivering a little.

            "Oh, you know," she replied vaguely. "I've played the video games a lot. I mean, we're already this far, aren't we?"

            "Okay." Sunny settled back. She had a point. They were almost home.

            "Aaaah!" They swerved wildly. Sunny heard Klaus blurt out a word she'd never heard him say before.

            "What was that?!" yelled Quigley.

            Isadora shook her head as they proceeded into the right lane. "You guys! There was a squirrel there! I didn't want to hurt him!"

             Quigley shook his head. "You probably gave him a heart attack."

            Klaus nodded. "You gave me one..."

            Sunny smiled, trying to focus on the reckless driving instead of what she had seen. The picture remained in her mind, staining it. She hated it. 

            Violet. Why would Violet do something like that when she had somebody like Quigley? Quigley deserved better than Violet. He deserved somebody who could laugh at his jokes, somebody who would listen to him, somebody who was...

            Somebody like Sunny.

            It hit her with a jolt. 

            She, Sunny, liked Quigley.

**Sorry about that last part...sort of lifted it from that revelation scene in_ Clueless_, didn't I? Oh, well. I like _Clueless_. **


	5. Chapter Five, which for some reason is t...

**Hmm. Sorry. I know that this has taken me forever, but I had already finished this story and I decided taht the ending sucked. Heh....ther'll be more action and stuff in Chapter Seven, if I ever get up and post it.**

Chapter Six

"So," said Isadora, "we should probably get going If we want to make it."

"Yeah," said Klaus. "I'll drive, okay?"

She giggled. "You're so paranoid." Sunny watched with jealousy as he kissed her cheek.

"Yeah," said Violet. "Let's go. Quigley," she added, her voice full of concern, "are you sure you'll be okay?" Quigley has a sore throat, He was staying home with Sunny.

"Yeah," he croaked. "You guys go see the movie. Dunn can have my ticket."

Duncan smiled. "Thanks. You and Sunny'll be okay?"

Quigley nodded. "Yeah. Go."

"Are you sure--?" Isadora began, but Violet hurriedly cut her off.

"Let's go, you guys. We don't want to be late for the movie."

They left quickly, leaving an empty silence where they had been.

Quigley turned to Sunny. "So...what do you normally do when we go out?"

She tried to think up something clever, but just managed to squeak out "I read. Books and stuff. Nancy Drew."

"Okay." He grinned. "You wanna do that now?"

The fluttering told her to say _no, I want to talk to you forever!_ She just shrugged. "If you do."

"I'm kind of hungry, actually," he admitted. "Do you want to make jello or something?"

Sunny grinned. "Sounds good to me."

He was in high school! She was in middle school! It was so unfair. They went into the kitchen and boiled the water.

"So," said Quigley, measuring out the powder, "I've talked to you sister and your brother a lot, but not you. How are you, Sunny?"

Sunny shrugged. "I'm okay, I guess. I really like Nancy Drew."

Quigley looked down and took a deep breath. "Do you remember a lot of...of when we all were...?"

Sunny looked down at the water she was pouring. "No. I remember Violet and Klaus looking upset a lot..."

Quigley nodded. "I...well, yeah. I always thought you were really brave. I mean, you were the one who was youngest. For us, we had memories to lean back on but you just..."

Sunny blushed. She wanted to kiss him. She was trembling, just watching him find a bowl for the jello. "Thanks, Quigley. You...I think you're really brave with...all the things you've done. I mean," she continued, "you survived a fire, without anybody else. You were so alone... And all the things you went through, and you made it and..."

She looked down. She'd said too much.

"Thanks," he said awkwardly, putting the jello in the fridge. "Thanks, Sunny."

She took a deep breath and smiled widely at him, still shaking and fluttering.

Quigley seemed caught off guard. He smiled, looking mixed-up. He took a step closer. Her heart banged louder than an elephant on a trampoline.

He kissed her on the forehead, then leaned back and said firmly, "I really care about your sister, Sunny."

Quigley turned and went upstairs.

Sunny collapsed into a chair, crying until her siblings came home.


End file.
